Texas book reviews and author interviews from the companion "Will's Texana Monthly" and elsewhere.

The Bookshelf, The Parlor, The Young Texas Reader, and the Monthly

The Texas Bookshelf is different from the The Texas Parlor, http://texasparlor.blogspot.com/ . The Texas Parlor carries "general" bookish information and non-book information and even different Texana news and notes of use to the bibliographically challenged and other nosey folks intersted in historical, literary, and cultural observations. Will's Texana Monthly may carry material from either blog, but extends itself beyond those, especially for longer compilations or treatments. The Monthly, the Bookshelf and the Parlor are all companions. So, is the Young Texas Readerhttp://youngtexasreader.blogspot.com/ which specialized on books and such things for the youngest to the teenagers.

The blog named Fa has an interview with James Hold, author of Remember the Aloe, Moe, a collection of short stories that comprise a novel, if I've got it right.Uh, the main character is named "J" who was a Siamese cat until he adapted himself to be a human wrestler, if I've got it right.Actually, J, a Texas cat, excuse me a Texan, appeared in an earlier Hold novel Out of Texas in which he saved Houston from a giant cabbage, if I've got it right.Don't trust me, I'm just sitting here as the screens go by, for yourself, read more about it athttp://delptzrnmozsx.blogspot.com/2008/06/interview-with-james-hold-author-of.html

An Arlington Public Library "Reader-to-Reader" blogger reviewsLinda Francis Lee's Ex-Dubutante. Read more about it at http://books.arlingtonlibrary.org/2008/06/i-am-native-texan.htmlThe Old 300 descendant, native Texan blogger also suggests these for summer readingMy Big Old Texas Heartache by Geralyn DawsonAlamo House by Sarah BirdLone Star Cafe by Lisa WingateLady be Good by Susan Elizabeth PhillipsBlue Blood by Susan McBrideNot Another Bad Date by Rachel Gibson

Book Review: Of All Sad Words: A Sheriff Dan Rhodes Mystery by Bill CriderPosted on June 27th, 2008 by Kevin Tipple"Blacklin County, Texas is a fairly, quiet place most of the time which is how Sheriff Dan Rhodes likes it. His idea of a citizens’ Sheriff’s Academy had seemed like a good idea at the time in that it would teach folks about the department and generate some good publicity. "Read more about it at http://www.bloggernews.net/116438

From the Fort Worth Business Press

Lone Star Library: Phil Vinson delivers a thought-provoking novel

"Scratch a veteran journalist, and nine times out of 10 you'll find a natural-born storyteller. Fort Worth's Phil Vinson has launched a storytelling-from-experience career with a rambunctious memoir called Ink in the Blood (see the Fort Worth Business Press, Sept. 12, 2005), and now he follows through with a thoughtful and provocative novel, It Takes a Worried Man."

Brad Guidry in The Cherokee Herald, declaring itself the oldest weekly newspaper in Texas, brings us news of Charles Page's new book offered by Marcia Hassell - Fire Boys, Fire Whistles, and Fire Wagons. see announcement at

Newsboy photo/ Sharon Kerr ALENE DUNN will soon have a book on library shelves with her name on it. Red Dirt and Sand Hill Stories are based on hers recollections of growing up in East Texas in the 1950's,"based on some measure of truth" and imagination.

"When Alene Dunn's book, Red Dirt and Sand Hill Stories, comes out in the fall she will be the newest published book author in the Sabine Neches Writers Guild."

....

"It's a lot of work. I had this collection of stories, and then I had to put in into the format the publisher wanted," Dunn said. "It's a collection of stories about growing up in the 1950's in East Texas that will bring back special memories to its readers."

Better check your genealogies and find out if she's talking about you. Get your stories straight.

Readers may wish to read and compare Alene Dunn with Mary Karr's Liar's Club, also a childhood memoir althought based nearer Beaumont and Horton Foote's Farewell, his childhood memoir of Wharton, just northwest of Houston.

[Re format:I did not add lines between the lines. The blog tends to add a blank line if the emailer "tabbed" at the end of line.Remember to turn off the automatic signature, or it also will transfer.I italicized the word Handbook in the email to tests whether formating would transfer.

"I was born in 1954. My parents were not educated and our circumstances were humble, to say the least. Not one house I ever entered while I was growing up had libraries or books. Everyone worked hard, lived from paycheck to paycheck, had too many kids, too many debts, drove cars that were always breaking down. Needless to say, I do not have the same background as a W.H. Auden or a T.S. Eliot. This is not to say that I was not surrounded by civil and intelligent people."

[new book announcement begins]"Using alarming stories drawn from the public record, The University of Texas law professors Thomas O. McGarity and Wendy Wagner describe in a new book how advocates for special interests employ a range of devious tactics to manipulate or suppress research on potential human health hazards.Harvard University Press is publishing the book, Bending Science: How Special Interests Corrupt Public Health Research. It is scheduled for release on May 31, 2008."

Texas Bookshelf presumes that these Texas lawyers did not find any corroborating evidence in Texas and that's why it book was published by one of those foreign firms, Harvard University."

"It is the true story of the brutal murders of two teenage girls, Jennifer Ertman, 14, and Elizabeth Pena, 16, who were abducted, raped, strangled, and stomped to death by a group of six teenage boys in Houston in 1993. The girls were running late for their curfew and decided to take a shortcut through a public park when they stumbled across a gang initiation."

"... will sign copies of her new book, “Fearless,” which will be on sale at the event. “Fearless” is set in the wide open spaces of Texas, where secrets still somehow lurk: in the heart of a shy, determined woman … behind the hard, rugged exterior of a DEA agent … and in the dangerous world of drug smuggling. Diana Palmer is a pen name for the writer whose real name is Susan Spaeth Kyle." read more athttp://fayettelife.blogspot.com/2008/06/author-diana-palmer-returns-to-chat.html

Shackelford has curated several exhibits for the well known Witte in San Antonio. Here he’s selected almost a hundred of the vintage South Texas Collection. Most date about the turn of 1900 or before, with some later from the late Jack Specht photographs. The collection is refreshing – settings and poses. Most of the works are period soft brown and shades of white. But some few are in color, and some were hand colored afterwards. The reader / viewer will turn the page slowly, enjoying the frontier / travel / worksite / play scenes / formal posing / reunions / and diverse ethnic and economic groups.

Hillsboro, Oregon: Beyond Words Pub., 2005. Hbk, 196 pages, many b&w photos, map, bibliog. ISBN 978-1-5827-0130-1 Price $39.95 Hardcover, $125.00 Signed with Slipcase First Edition, $250.00 Leather bound Limited Edition http://www.beyondword.com/ Dian Malouf gracefully shares a portion of the South Texas Brush Country that she loves – the ranchers, the roundups, the land. In 26 chapterlettes the authenticity, dignity, and even the humor of the folks inform the reader to turn the pages slowly.

These photos and words are worth your time. The happiest photos are of Bob Reagan, an occasional horse and daughter trainer. The horses crossing the Colorado River to Matagorda are a wonderful visual spread. Malouf’s text is simple, elegant, and attractive, drawing at times on conversation, knowledge, and memory. Mainly Malouf gives you a way of life distant from modern superficiality and closer to life worth living.

By Janis P. Stout. Lubbock: Texas Tech University Press, 2007. 352 pages. 7 b/w photos, 69 b/w images, notes, and bibliog. ISBN 089672610X $40.00 http://www.ttup.ttu.edu/ Texas A & M University scholar, Janis Stout, offers students of alternative literary and art history the opportunity to find an absorbing exploration of Mary H. Austin and Willa Cather and by extension both women and the American experience.It’s a window to Western topography for understanding rather than its immediate use in the usual male stereotype of physical exploitation. Austin’s and Cather’s perception of the West was indirect by their seeing of printed illustrative matter and indirectly by their direct, first-hand sight.

Their mental processing, their own written narrative describing the environment, and their influences on illustrator selection, the actual illustrations, and page design all “informed a new literary tradition – that of an ungendered American West … not feminine so much as androgynous.”Here, Stout sees the West as a physical place rather than a geopolitical condition. She finds three important focal points:·

1) Austin and Cather’s personal experience of the West·

2) Art and illustration in the book-making experience·

3) Their revision of gender assumptions

For this volume Stout’s stimulation rose from her recognition of similarities of illustrations in Austin’s Land of Little Rain and Cather’s My Antonia. From there, she draws on many titles and dozens of authors.

Among the principals are the elders Elsie Clews Parsons, Mabel Dodge Luhan, Georgia O’Keeffe, and Laura Gilpin, and the newer hands Leslie Marmon Silko, Margaret Randall and Barbara Byers. Stout clarifies that women see and do things differently, although not all the time.

How does one photograph a cultural benchmark? Get an artist who understands it. Larry McMurtry’s 1985 best-selling novel took a Pulitzer Prize, etc., and Wittliff’s screenplay, miniseries version took 7 Emmy’s, 2 Golden Globes, etc. Here Wittliff’s long sharpened photographic sensibilities cover the movie’s making – from Robert Duval and Tommy Lee Jones onto the land itself. An intelligent and graceful spaciousness has been Wittliff’s hallmark of artistry from his early days of design at the SMU Press, into his Encino Press, and onto the screen.La Vida Brinca and Vaquero: Genesis of the Texas Cowboy are earlier photographic works of Wittliff. You might as well put them on the coffee table with this Dove. You’ll want to keep them viewed but unsoiled.

According to Pachecano, the eventually prominent South Texas architect Atlee Ayres’ first two works were the Colonial Revival houses for the Nix family in San Antonio’s downtown King William’s District. The works are “some of the first examples of the New England-style frame homes in South Texas.” Built in 1899 as part of the City Beautiful Movement, the houses’ simplified presentation contrasted with the previously popular complex Victorian style domiciles. In addition to the usually architectural explication, Pachecano supplies the finances of the deal and related social, economic, and political history. The architecture exemplifies social and economic change. The 2005 restoration was very “green.”

These 33 interesting episodes of history begin in prehistory and continue to 1993. Most are the usual quarrelsome or violent stories of a nation or state in development. Most before 1866 are the stock stories, but those after are refreshing, more likely unknown to the casual historian. For instance, there’s the 1966 “March of the Melon Pickers,” and the 1993 “Showdown in Waco.”

The less violent tend to be stories related to women, like actress Sarah Bernhardt’s 1892 and 1906 tours and the 1967 story about Barbara Jordan taking her seat. And there’s the humorous 1891 rainmaking.

It would be nice if Crutchfield would compile a volume solely devoted to the 20th century.

It’s a fact that monstrosities, wild creatures, freaks, old corpses, floating ghosts, peculiar deaths, medical anomalies, UFO’s and a few other things, unlike the previously mentioned, that are just plain weird are described in the short, re-printed newspaper stories. They are from over a hundred different towns’ journalism pages. Is your town one of them? For small towns, Bonham, Paris, and Hillsboro seem especially prone to oddities. Maybe that explains a few things I’d rather not discuss.

Cannon’s 100 historical anecdotes, legends, and folklore pieces are short (1 paragraph to 3 pages) and quite consumable. Some is the expected fodder, but most will be rather fresh to the usual reader. Here you find Three-Legged Williamson resting next to Bessie Coleman, the pioneer African American aviatrix and Barbara Jordan, known to all. It’s not secret, but here’s a version of how Box 13 was stolen for LBJ in 1948. The plains of Ector County reminded the early settlers of Russia, so you get the town of Odessa. Did Crockett’s “Old Betsy” come to Texas, or was it just too new fangled for tough Texas?

On the assumption that Houstonians talk about local sports, this will settle and start countless important points for questions such as:What was the most magical performance in Houston sports history? What should we do with the Astrodome? What was the biggest post-season homerun? What was the worst move by a general manager? Who are the top 5 basketball players? What really happened at the 1979 Cotton Bowl? What was UH’s best year? All rather simple things.

and now lives in Jefferson. The many intervening years were filled with richness. His essay on his adolescent circus days in "Murder-By-4" is touched by lightsome, elegaic, and realist tones. Seems he'd be a good fellow with which to share a Bayou LeMarche stroll or a slice of pie.

Saturday, June 7, 2008

"ProPublica is an independent, non-profit newsroom that will produce investigative journalism in the public interest. Our work will focus exclusively on truly important stories, stories with "moral force." We will do this by producing journalism that shines a light on exploitation of the weak by the strong and on the failures of those with power to vindicate the trust placed in them. "

http://www.propublica.org/pr_new_team_june04_2008.htmlSome Dallas journalists are joining:"New York, NY (June 5, 2008)— ProPublica, a non-profit newsroom producing journalism in the public interest, today announced seven more additions to its news staff. Robin Fields, formerly an investigative reporter at the Los Angeles Times, is a senior reporter at ProPublica. Jennifer LaFleur of the Dallas Morning News will be director of computer-assisted reporting. Jake Bernstein of The Texas Observer, Michael Grabell of the Dallas Morning News, Paul Kiel of TPMmuckraker and A.C. Thompson are joining ProPublica as reporters. Krista Kjellman, associate producer in the investigative unit of ABC News, is joining ProPublica as a web producer. "

While this is intended as a national organ, it'll be interesting if they bring focus to Texas, the land just east of Eden.

Book Review: The Sweet And The Dead by Milton T. BurtonPosted on June 7th, 2008 by Kevin Tipple

"Tyler, Texas Author Milton T. Burton distinguished himself with the powerful debut novel “The Rogues’ Game.” Unlike many authors, there is no slump in his stand alone second novel titled “The Sweet And The Dead.” The mystery is complex, the writing is superb, and the read is wonderful.As the novel opens, it is the fall of 1970 and Manfred Eugene “Hog” Webern is deep undercover in Biloxi, Mississippi. Hog is a retired Dallas County Deputy Sheriff, a good man, and a damn good cop despite the word on the street."

Another Margaret Berry production on UT. She knows the rocks and the details.

Over 500 bits and pieces of trivia and quotations in seven chapters: Student Life and Traditions / Faculty / Alumni / Founders and Leaders / Town and Gown / Campus / Longhorn Sports. What direction do the “river” and “tree” streets run? What do Sweat Palm and Heman Swante have in common? How tall’s the UT tower? What’s MoPac? Is Eeyore’s Birthday Party on Sixth Street? What did Kelsey A. Douglass want in 1837?

I have favorites. Armadillos cross roads more often than chickens. Dale Evans’ “Happy Trails” is on your iPod. Lonesome Dove is not a bird. It’s alright to boast and feel independent. Each page carries an extra tidbit, e.g., tumbleweeds are recent Russian emigrants. Altogether, a pleasant reading and handling experience.

Aside from his preaching duties at the Sonora Episcopal church, Monte Jones, aka Bisquits O”Bryan, was known to audible perambulations without strident encouragement.

The drama degree didn’t hurt. Then he found his alternate life at the Covered Wagon Stage where Bisquits opines on his work at the I.O. Everybody Ranch. Jones received the 2003 Will Rogers Award from Academy of Western Artists. So, all in all, this little collection of virtual truths of childish and adultish behavior projected through the West Texas Sonoran lens brings humor in tow.

The 18 tales include playing with fire, playing with electricity, real horror at the movies, a first hair cut, skinny-dipping, and other life experiences of near truth.

“In 2003, [Susan-Lori] Parks returned to fiction writing, publishing her first novel, Getting Mother's Body. A twist on Faulkner's As I Lay Dying, the novel follows the quest of a pregnant teenager who sets off with a small group of accomplices for Arizona, where she plans to exhume her mother's body in order to retrieve the jewels supposedly hidden in the coffin. She is pursued by her mother's former lover, who vows to keep her promise that the jewels remain with the body.Parks says that the novel and its characters are grounded in the landscape of West Texas, where she had lived during her father's army days: "I love the big sky and arid landscape of that place. The characters came out of that landscape and the story came out of those characters. Then there was Faulkner's novel, which I had read eight years before" (Marshall).”

Austin: Trail’s End Books, 2007. pbk 196 pages. ISBN 0-9788422-0-0 / 978-0-9788422-0-8.http://www.mikekearby.com/Kearby, former English teacher concludes this third and last installment of the Free Anderson / Parks Scott story as he continues the friendship of the former Civil War soldiers, Free Parks, the ex-slave, and Parks Scott, his white friend, on the West Texas and Panhandle plains.

It’s 1874 and Free continues his vocation as a mustanger with his family, but here Free and Parks get entangled in the Kiowa, Comanche, and Cheyenne Indians’ struggle to keep their lands and their buffalo, with the admixture of Billy Dixon, Mexican hunters and the U.S. Army. The fast-paced novel continues the harsh reality of the times, while splicing in loyalty, family ties, and sensitivity of folks of different origins.

The plot focuses around the famous Battle of Adobe Walls, virtually the last major violent settler-Native American encounter in Texas. While many readers will not think of it, the trilogy is also an excellent selection for teenage or YA readers.

Kearby’s earlier works have attracted attention and have been picked up by Dorchester / Leisure Books for 2008! The trilogy would be good in school libraries. (Did you read the lead article in this issue?)

IntroductionWe have selected about 150 from several hundred tagged with the “Texas” wordwhich brings up DT’s using that word in its various descriptions, including if it happensto be produced by an institution whose name includes the word “Texas” regardless oftopic. Certainly many more can be found that did not use the keyword “Texas” in theirtitles or abstracts. To augment this list, a dozen city names were searched, as well as adozen college names, rivers, and other serendipitous selections. Others can search usingwhatever words may be interesting.The selected works are either focused on social elements of modern times or onhistorical topics. Some works of fiction or poetry are included. Most technical reports ofthe science, business, and the educational realms were excluded.Traditionally, dissertations and thesis are collected by ProQuest DigitalDissertations and made available in a variety of formats, paper (loose sheets, underpaperback binding, hardback binding), at one time in microform, and now in electricformat. Their web site at http://wwwlib.umi.com/dissertations/ offers this salutation,“Welcome to ProQuest Digital Dissertations! As a visitor, you will be able to freelyaccess the most current two years of citations and abstracts in the Dissertation Abstractsdatabase. To search the entire database of more than 1.6 million titles, you will need toconnect from a subscription institution.” College or public libraries near you may have asubscription. Researchers should bear in mind that not all colleges report their academicpapers to ProQuest, and that retrospective holdings are not infrequently not yet reported.The database of WorldCat also contains many academic works at http://worldcat.org/with significant overlap with ProQuest. College library catalogs are becoming moreadaptive to isolating on DT’s. See also the separate column on “The DT’s” in Will’sTexana Monthly.Schools provide their information to ProQuest at their own schedules. Thepresent list was collected near the end of 2006. At the end of 2006, UT reported about600 on all topics. Texas Tech University showed no reported titles, but some were addedfrom elsewhere. As 2007 advances, certainly new 2006 titles will be added by severalschools.Some annotations are provided, often quotations from the abstracts.Go to ProQuest or other options to acquire copies of the works, not WT.If you wish to receive the full e-publication, let us know.Will Howard, Will’s Texana12618 Ashcroft, Houston, 77035, 713-728-1981, willstexana@yahoo.com

author of a new Ranger history (The Texas Rangers: Wearing the Cinco Peso, 1821-1900 by Mike Cox. (New York: Forge Books, 496 pages, $25.95 )) comments in his own blog "Lone Star Book Blog" on a collection of other very recent other Ranger volumes.

Read his "Roundin' Up Ranger Books" for insightful comments and fuller bibliographical citations.

This Hollmann, http://www.lonestarlegends.org/., volume follows his Davy Crockett and Jim Bowie. Seguin was indeed one of the essential people in his time. Unlike his previous time-trunk and friendly dog companion, Hollmann uses a more direct device – a life-long friend of Seguin to provide the framework of the biography. And as a childish extra, Hollmannn injects the juvenile competitiveness for racing as a recurring option. The reader is introduced to Seguin’s family, long established in Texas, and within pages finds Seguin meeting Stephen Austin and a line of colonial notables important to the Texas Revolution.

Seguin and his associates are concerned about Santa Anna’s aggressive manner and throw in with the developing stronger democratic tradition of the times, unlike the Seguin family’s support of the counter-revolution against Las Casas in 1811. Bowie becomes one of the favorites because of his ties to San Antonio and his marriage into the Veramendi family. Seguin commands the scouts looking for Santa Anna’s arrival.

Eventually, his men become a part of the Alamo garrison, but he is detailed specifically as messenger to Sam Houston and is ultimately spared from the Alamo soldiery’s bloodbath. But Seguin continues on to become an officer at the Battle of San Jacinto after convincing Houston that his Tejano troops have earned the right to battle. After the battle, Houston asks Seguin to superintend the burial of the Alamo defenders.

The volume ends there without reference to his government service thereafter or the later tragedy of Seguin’s demise partly due to prejudice. Seguin died in 1890.

Yes, summer is gone. All the better reasons for Houstonians packing children to get this volume now, planning is the only thing that saves you from summerkiditis. Most of the book is an alphabetically arranged, annotated directory (including costs) of about 200 institutions / organizations with programs of care and enrichment for the summer of 2007.

It is appended with two useful indexes. One is by the calendar, i.e., what camps / classes occur what week. The other index is by category: art, educational, full day, other, religious, free camps/classes (only 6), special needs, sports, and teens. Another list is “Drop-ins,” “ organizations that offer drop-in or at-home activities for kids.”

The final 7 pages constitute a chart for the organizations and for each their primary climate, area of town, age range, and length (full or half day.) In 2107, our children’s children’s children will notice the options they once had. One wonders what 2107 will hold for our children.

In Marshall of the 1950’s, we had summer school for the slow and the fast, Scout camp, church camp, Little League and Mormon softball, horse classes, and that mysterious girls’ camp near Jefferson; otherwise we ran free – in the Woods, the Vines, the Pits, up and down the Hills, at the Pond, in the Branch, at the Park – doing things not always reportable to grown ups. Get on the mailing list for next year and civilize your wild one.

Freeman Anderson and Parks Scott are back after their introduction in The Road to a Hanging, and Lou Halsell Rodenberger describes this second of a Western trilogy as “believable…. With deft characterization and historical accuracy.” This time the despicable Tig Hardy captures Clara, now Free’s wife, and the rescue is off and running. Clean writing and sharp characterization move the reader along. Clara emerges as a full partner, inventive and persistent, as Free and Scott battle the elements and fight their way through desperados, the desert, the mountains, back through El Paso, and finally make peace in the Big Bend winter retreat of the Apaches. It’s rather pleasant that Free is relieved of venting his anger in violence when Tig meets his demise by other hands as “No man escapes his own times.”

NY: HarperCollins, 2007. Illustrated. 353 pp. $25.95. Who’s Pat Montandon? Well, as this preacher’s daughter’s biography recounts she grew up in the 1930s in Texas and Oklahoma, got a job at Neiman-Marcus and then left. She dated Frank Sinatra and she lost a Peace Prize to Elie Wiesel.

http://www.pcpublications.org/proddetail.php?prod=FIRSTLHoustonian Anne Adams brings our attention to America’s First Ladies, several pages each of actually interesting reading. But our focus here is Texana. While Julia Dent was secretly engaged to Ulysses Grant, he was sent off to the Texas border, not by Julia but by the military. Mamie Dowd’s family had a winter home at San Antonio a hundred years ago. In 1915 while in that city Mamie met Ike, a lieutenant at the time. Later began the Texas dynasty Claudia Taylor, Barbara Pierce, and Laura Welch. But, if you are wishing to inspire the little girls of your neighborhood, don’t forget that Lou Henry Hoover was an astonishing person; I’ve read her … and she was no Texan.

Denton: Zone Press, 2007. http://www.zonepress.com/ pbk $15.95 160 pages ISBN 978-09796698-1-1Over a dozen tales are featured here by these two seasoned journalists, Price and the late Turner. If you think you know Price from the comic and horror scenes, you do: http://www.comicmix.com/contributor/michael-h-price-1/ The tales start early, like in the dinosaur period, followed by the coming of the native Americans, and come all the way John Wayne being inspired by Tex Thornton for the movie Hellfighters. These stories are meant to be interesting reading and they are. You’ve got phantoms, ghosts, murders, and mayhem. If the Texas plains seem dull to you, pick up this volume. Halloween may be just the right time. (Thanks to Randy at Zone for the copy.)

By David Carmicheal. Iowa City, Iowa: Council of State Archivists, 2007. 24 pages 8 ½ x 11, $10.00 paperback, see at www.statearchivists.org/prepare/families.htmAvailable in time for American Archives Month (October) and Family History Month (October). Do you have a birth certificate, diploma, marriage license and deed or driver’s license, death certificate? To help families prepare for potential disaster, the Council of State Archivists (CoSA) provide this useful guide. The manual categorizes the records and suggests appropriate methods of duplicating the records that protect a family's finances, health, civil rights, and family history. It includes a checklist of records and even discusses whether you should have some documents certified before a crisis. The booklet, with its chart of disposition, is clearly intended to be used and kept by families to safeguard their future.

Huffines has studied, served in the military, written Blood of Noble Men: The Alamo Siege and Battle and articles, and consulted on the recent Alamo movie, the one with Dennis and Billy Bob. Here he provides a summary of the Revolution. The volume is loaded with graphics. Huffines begins with Hidalgo Revolution of 1810 but places the 1836 revolt in context: Texas was never really Spanish, only claimed and sparsely settled; it was still the northern Protestants against the southern Catholics; it’s England and Spain. But leaving all that behind he continues noting the troubled Mexican stability and nascent democratic principles until Santa Anna effects his dictatorship. The author makes a readable narrative of the usual story, but two things also stand out. One is the inserted chapter on Col. Juan Almonte, son of revolutionary Morelos, the 1834 inspector, and Santa Anna’s Chief of Staff; it’s good to drop into a bit of relative depth on the Mexican side. The other is the abundance and quality of illustrations, often large and in color; and they may take up half the space, leaving the remaining 50 pages a brisk read. The summary could also serve as supplementary reading for 7th graders.

Pat Morris Neff (1871-1952) did more than fight Demon Rum and live a personally righteous life. Rising from a dirt farm, he placed the highway system in a top priority, planted the seeds of our parks system, appointed women to office, fought the Klan, and attempted reform of our prison system. Thereafter he chaired the Railroad Commission and steered Baylor toward stability during the Depression, through the War to its centennial. The late Dorothy Blodgett’s years of research are augmented by Terrell and David. Over 50 pages are consumed by the footnotes and 20 pages are consumed by the bibliography.

This first and only full biographical treatment of the visionary Texan is exciting and worthwhile, written by admiring hands on a landmark governor. The volume may spark further inquiry into Texas’ early 20th century humane qualities.

See also the recent work: Guided with a steady hand: the cultural landscape of a rural Texas park / by Dan K. Utley and James W. Steely. Baylor University Press, 1998. [electronic resource] – The most interesting older work may be his own: Making Texans: five minute declamations / by Pat M. Neff. Austin: Gammel's Books Store, 1931.

MacInerney, used her academic tools to spoon her way through Blue Bell’s archives, and you’ll find her serving delicious. Now a hundred years old, the "Little Creamery in Brenham" is the unofficial ice cream of Texas. Here you’ll find the stories of the people, ideas, the technology, and, yes, the famous Jersey cows. The German heritage Kruze family has moo’ed their way into the top echelons of national sales and for good reason. You’ll enjoy the volume on Texas culinary history, social and cultural life, and keen business instincts to boot. I enjoyed buckets of Tin Roof and Southern Blackberry Cobbler while reading, but you may differ.

Richard Holland, bibliographer and Honors lecturer, declares that UT at its 125th anniversary “can justly claim to be a ‘university of the first class.’" Don Carleton, Director of the Center for American History (now including the Barker), declares "This is the first book of its kind in UT's 125-year history," and the "essays depict the University's defining moments while poignantly capturing the spirit of the campus.” They are correct, despite their vestedness.These collected essays, some old, some new, reveal hallmark persons and incidents in the stairway toward excellence. But then, I’ve orange blood as well.I turned the bright white pages of the volume and smoothly ran my hand across the pages for pleasure. For me the most intriguing essay, by Richard Oram, backgrounds Harry Ransom’s foundation of the great collection he amassed. Although Oram’s essay dwells on Ransom’s mid-1950’s pursuit of the older classics, especially the T.E. Hanley collection, a part of Ransom’s strategy included the deliberate effort to collect the new. Ransom once shared this with me while we rode the elevator and reflected over the HRC’s corner fountains. Ransom’s “modern titles” approach bent this young library science student to define his several ventures in Texana. These ventures included the SWLA’s task force for recommended children’s books, the index to TSLAC’s monthly checklist of state publications, the establishment of the Texas Bibliographical Society’s Texas Current Bibiliography and Index, and ultimately even Will’s Texana Monthly. Such was the influence exposed to the 40-acres students not available elsewhere.The Texas Book baskets for you history, reminiscences, and anecdotes on or by G.W. Brackenridge, G.W. Littlefield, Robert Vinson, Frank Dobie, Frank Erwin, Américo Paredes, Barbara Jordan, Walter Webb, Willie Morris, Betty Sue Flowers and others.

The device to introduce the young reader to Bowie is Bowie’s own dog, Gator, named so for a gator fight. Years after Bowie has died at the Alamo, Gator reminiscences for his young pups about his life with the frontiersman. The text moves right along, from a dog’s point of view. Hollmann again brings his young readers to a personal level of the subject, this time Bowie, by Gator’s inclusion of personal matters including Bowie’s first meeting with and the later loss of his wife, Ursula Veramendi, daughter of the former governor of Coahuila y Tejas. From the origin of the keen edged Bowie knife on to the fall of the Alamo, Gator and Bowie, the narrative clips along with little underbrush to slow down the young reader. There are glancing encounters with Austin, Houston, Milam, Travis, Neill, and others as.

This plain looking, gray, spiral bound volume plainly ought to be in about every public library system and college library of a general nature in Texas, to say nothing of the public schools, even though it is 10 years old. Now that’s a big statement, but the volume is simply packed with Texana sources for the youngsters and teaching material for the adults. TSHA in its usual fine commitment to public education has recently arranged the printing a few more copies courtesy of the Houston Chronicle, so quit piddling around and get a copy. Its official focus is on history and geography, but it really goes further.

Aside from the many formats addressed from atlases to periodicals to posters to Spanish language material to videos and more, DeBoe made sure that Barbara Immroth, editor of Texas in Children’s Books, 1986, assisted in compiling the “Juvenile Books” section (pages 87 to120) which includes fiction. All total, there may be 500 annotated titles through the volume. Yes, the 2-pager on internet resources, which is little more than a recommendation to the still good Armadillo Gopher, is in retrospect demonstrates just what has happened in the last decade. Acquiring and using this volume can invigorate yourself or your collection and provide an excellent baseline for collecting. While some of the purchase prices may be out of date, much of the free material may still be.

The reign of successful juvenile Texana can rise from this volume’s paper planes.

Joe O’Connell’s short works have The G.W. Review, Other Voice, Confrontation, Lullwater Review and many other journals. He’s taken first prize at both the Deep South Writers Conference and in the Louzelle Rose Barclay Awards. Now he teaches at St. Edward’s University and Austin Community College. In the Evacuation Plan, Matt, a fledgling screenwriter, finds himself as a volunteer working with the terminally ill in search of his next movie. Everyone there is, of course, evacuating, and Matt finds the intimacy and serendipity in such cases. The volume proceeds in an episodic fashion or the “novel-in-stories style.” As you go with him from bed, to wheel chair, to hallway the personal stories unfold. The broken, the hopeful, the frustrated, the clueless, and the forgiving touch one another with words, remembrances, and hands.

Inevitably, readers will quietly wonder about their own evacuation plan. Will yours include a Hawaiian shirt or Girl Scout Cookies or stories of drunken gambling?http://www.joemoconnell.com/

Elmer Kelton and James Ward Lee have Kearby in their sights and have fired off comments confirming Kearby’s work is an action packed Western. And it is. Kearby, a Mineral Wells native, former school teacher, and holder of irrigation patents, turned to writing and his Texas legacy is clear and he stakes out a fresh path. Freedom Anderson, the principal character, escapes his 1860s slavery as the Civil War rages, joins the Union Army, and, after action at Palmetto and the war’s end, finds his way back to Texas but old racial habits of another war veteran place him on the road to a handing. Freedom finds himself captured by the hatred of the sheriff, subject to false allegations. Parks Scott, Freedom’s pal, hears the news. But will it be too late? Pick up the book and find yourself moving at a fast clip to find out.

It’s good reading. Good values, loyalty, hard work, and daring to boot. The volume is marketed as a YA novel is some quarters, and it is fit for the public school set. (Thanks to publicist Stephanie Barko for the copy.)

By Roy Spence with the People of Texas. Stories collected and edited by Mike Blair and photography by Randal Ford. Austin: GSD&M/Idea City Press, 2006. Many color photos. 156 large pages. Pictorial jacket. ISBN 987-0-9722825-2-9 Hardback and black cloth, $24.95. http://www.amazingfaithoftexas.com/A photo of a person, a church, temple or synagogue, or natural or urban landscape is on most alternate pages facing a classic quotation or a story by or about a person or congregation or spiritual matter tucked into the folds of Texas. Between the covers you’ll find Methodists, Baptists, Catholics, Presbyterians, Episcopalians, Mennonites, other Christians, Native American shaman, Unitarians, Jews, Moslems, Bahi’a advocates, Hindus, Buddhists, and of course the unconventional Texan, according to conventional standards, but God may have other standards.

Ron Conatser, rodeo cowboy and preacher at the Risin Sun Cowboy Church, shares that God “Bought me this dance hall in ’91 and got [me] busy preachin’ the Word of God to whoever walks in the door. We’re a Word church. No denomination. Just a place where people can come just the way they are and worship God. Pretty simple. No red tape.” Pastor Rudy Rasmus explains “Faith is like riding in a car with Ray Charles driving.” Evelyn Romig, from Howard Payne University, muses “I think Jesus looks at us today and says, ‘What did you miss in what I said about loving one another?’” Carlisle Vandervoort, a Hindu in her meditative posture, may agree, “Now I try to see God in everyone. And that’s a real test sometimes.” Houston mayor Bill White recalls that during the Katrina rescue certain passages gave him action, “When I was hungry, you fed me….” Bob Decker, a policeman, recounts “Life is a freeway to God,” and that freeway led him to help the people in the paper houses across the border. Liz Melton goes to the “Church of Nature” to fly fish and watch the sun, the birds, and the ripple of the river, and Anna Huff finds religion in the trees. The most beautiful photo portrait is of Eduardo Salmon, a WWII Vet, and he recalls “I remember sitting in a foxhole in the Ardennes forest. It was freezing. The artillery was crashing all around us; bullets were flying…,” and he later reflects “I don’t understand why it bothers some people that someone may worship differently from them.”

Spence’s volume is divided into three parts, like a three-point sermon maybe: “Common Ground Found in Faith,” “Common Ground Found in the Golden Rule,” and “Common Ground Found in Values.” If you find the book and turn the pages without finding your heart strangely warmed, you’ve got the wrong book.

Ric Bucher, of ESPS fame, assists the story of Yao Ming, the 7’5”, now recently married, of the Houston Rockets basketball team. The color photos of Yao’s early life are sure to please. In fact chapter 2 “A Boy in China” may be the most fascinating part of the book. But fans will follow the glowing, though repetitious, workouts, NBA nervousness, racism, butting heads with Shaquille O’Neal, growing maturity, and domestic life. They still love Yao in China, and he tours the CBA. Yao says its not impossible for Houston to win the championship this year! But he’s yet to win his Spurs. May be o.p., try Target.

Alderman, UH Law Center faculty member and “The People’s Lawyer” for whom q.v. http://www.law.uh.edu/faculty/main.asp?PID=1 , is a years-long feature on Houston TV, answering legal questions from viewers. He’s articulate and knowledgeable. This popular volume is worth having and reading by those unblessed by a powdered wig. The book is chaptered into 17 parts of your life. His Q & A technique with normal language cuts to the practical hearts with competent text.

Sample questions include: What is pfishing? What happens if the photographer dies? Can my creditor take my IRA? Can my employer search my locker? How long do I have to wait? Do I have to wear a funny uniform? Is my neighbor responsible? How do I collect? What is community property? Fortunately Alderman adds context to the maybe hundreds of questions which he usually answers in less than a page. Sample wills and probate forms are added at the back. Alderman gives us again a useful volume to protect yourself, your family, and your property.

Could be an excellent gift to a young, non-law school graduate. But enjoy reading it first. A good volume to learn rights and responsibilities.

What if the Texas Revolution were not quite the straightforward contest between embattled American farmers and Mexican oppressors that has come down to us in myth? What if the British plotted for a dozen years to keep Texas out of U.S. hands? What if a Scottish doctor by the name of James Grant, an elusive figure in the Texas Revolution, had really been a British agent (perhaps one of several) in Mexico to thwart U.S. dreams of building a nation from sea to sea? What if Grant’s expedition to Matamoros had stopped Santa Anna’s drive into Texas? What if Grant’s aim in leading the Texan fighters to Matamoros was to turn the revolution away from dependence on the U.S. and toward a greater dependence on the Federalists of northern Mexico. What if the democratic-minded Mexican Federalists (and others) had formed a Confederacy of the Northern Mexican States & Texas (or the Republic of Greater Texas, or whatever) that covered the whole of what eventually would become the southwestern U.S. as well as northern Mexico? What if that confederacy happened to encompass most of Mexico’s rich silver mining districts (where Grant happened to own large properties)—not to mention a major port at the mouth of the Rio Grande? Stuart Reid has masterfully fleshed out the surprising answers to these questions in The Secret War for Texas, a well-documented, well-written book that reads like an espionage thriller. As Grant’s great-great-great grandson, he had access to family papers. As a Scot, he drew on Colonial and Foreign office references in the UK National Archives--plus many Texas and U.S. sources. Reid is a historical consultant to the National Trust for Scotland for the Culloden Moor Memorial Project. The Secret War for Texas places the Texas Revolution into the context of the “great game,” as Reid puts it, being played out in the first half of the nineteenth century between Washington and London over mastery of the North American continent. Reid will be a speaker at the San Jacinto Symposium, “Expanding the Horizons of Texas History,” on Saturday, April 19, 2008. The day-long meeting will be held at the University of Houston’s Hilton Hotel & Conference Center. More information is available at www.friendsofsanjacinto.orgReview by Barbara Eaves, an avocational historian on the San Jacinto Symposium planning committee, serves on the Harris County Historical Commission. She also is a director of Houston History magazine.

Shelton Williams’ account of the 1961 “Kiss and Kill” murder case outside Odessa is presented with a cold eeriness invoking Hitchcockian surrealism. In the first 2-page chapter, teenager Betty, whose desire, invitation, planning, and assistance is clear, is shot in the back of the head at a quiet, sparse oil field by her friend Mack who somehow finds it okay to be her instrument of death.

Betty’s cousin, Shelton, narrates the real-life drama in this “intersection” of their lives. We are introduced to teenage life in West Texas, football competitiveness near the height of Odessa Permian’s dominance, school cliques, the usual religious hypocrisy and adolescent sexual frenzy, and Betty’s angst of being stuck there. The town and the principal characters are detailed with the informative, yet simple, style common at kitchen tables, front porches, and automobile backseats. Shelton takes you there – through the relationships, the murder, the town’s reaction, the trial, and in this 2nd edition, two extra chapters. Part of Shelton’s success is his unvarnished portrayal of the innocent, the boredom, the anger, and anxiety of Betty and the ultimate cast throughout the city.

Why read the book, maybe because the story could arise from any place, like yours, and the good writing makes you turn the pages.

Radio may be the centennial cradle of the wireless internet umbrella now being installed by the City of Houston.Varela’s delightful volume covers more than just KRPC that took its call letters from its slogan “Kotton, Port, Rail Center.” He explores the territory from the 1900s through the 1920s. Local sound took flight. Don’t be shocked but conmen cast the first plan for a Texas-wide radio network back around 1906. Others made receivers were made from trash can lids, and kites were used to search for signals. It was also a time of amateur radio operators and inquiring adolescents. Howard Hughes, Sr. encouraged Jr. into radio. Live song and music was as common then as some of the leg-slapping things you find on the internet today. Church choirs and musical clubs were in demand. Physics lectures were common. During World War I, private use was banned at the threat of treason, but some discrete listening continued. Some applied their skills in the military, aboard ships but most on land. After the war, Houston radio men and women roared with the rest. Regular businesses took to the air waves to tout their wares and entertain. Today’s KPRC and KTRH mark their birth in this time. The interest of Jesse Jones, Bill Hobby, Joseph Cullinan, and Ross Sterling signaled radio was serious business. Classical, jazz, beer garden umpas, and organ recitals streamed into homes. Varela gives you a very readable text for this exciting era.

Arellano, a native of San Antonio, used Tejano legends as fuel to study history and to open another part of the American adventure for you - stories often unknown to modern Texans. It is presented in two parts.Part I covers the “First Texas Revolution” that was sparked by Father Hidalgo’s 1810 Mexican Revolution. The 1811 San Antonio Las Casas overthrow of the Spanish monarchy spread to many sections of the land and held sway for a brief time. The Gutierrez – Magee Expedition followed, being described by Arellano’s accounts of the Battle of Alazan, the establishment of a Republic, and its folding after the August 13, 1813 Battle of Medina, near San Antonio and still without a major historical marker at the site.

Part II begins with covering the “The Pecking Order or The Caste System” of the time – the Conquistador Spaniard, the peninsulares, the criollos, the mestizos, the indios, and the negroes. The subsequent chapters cover life for the Coahuiltecan Indians and the Tlaxcallan Indians (who often are simply counted of Spanish descendent) and the famous 15 Canary Islander (Los Islenos) immigrant families usually considered San Antonio’s 1730s founders, despite folks (mostly mestizos and soldiers) already having been there.

The next chapters recount the author’s efforts to re-capture his legacy. Subsequent tables population figures and lists of Canary Islanders, the Compania Precidial de Bejar, the muster list of the Alamo de Parras Company, and the Arellano family tree.

Bobby McKinney has dug up the dirt on Texas, especially the dirt in and around the counties neighboring the lowest Brazos River but as far away as Saltillo, and his book shows you what he and others have found. This includes over 200 photographs of buttons, plates, insignia, ordnance, weapons, and personal effects from both armies and navies and occasional personal and religious relics. Most of the relics, in sharp photos, date from the 1790s to the 1840s with a little oozing on both ends. The earliest seems to be a Jesuit ring of the 1730s found near Victoria. They are intriguing so get a chair when you pick up the volume.

The author has spent years following the army trails of the revolting Texans and the forces of president-dictator Santa Anna. McKinney divides the book into chapters: Dinero (yes, that’s money); Buttons; Buckles-Plates-Insignia; and the like. The photo commentary is usually a date, type of relic with occasional gestures of detail, and location of discovery, but occasionally the inveterate digger breaks into full paragraphs of explanation. The coins’ artwork is wonderfully diverse and alluring. The buttons show fine detail and domestic simplicity – stars abound – and some are clearly U.S. military issue. Many of the photos focus on weaponry – blades, barrels, balls, lock plates, flints and such. The final chapter surveys historical markers in the bottomland and elsewhere.

McKinney traces himself to a signer of the Declaration of Independence and looks comfortable under the trees.